David McGinnis received his Ph.D. in 1994 from the Pennsylvania State University in Geography. His dissertation focused on climate change projections for snowpack and water resources over the Colorado Plateau. His paper and presentation of this research received the Warren J. Nystrom award for Best Dissertation in Geography in 1996 from the Association of American Geographers. Dr. McGinnis received a competitive postdoctoral appointment as a Visiting Fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado and stayed on with the National Snow and Ice Data Center and CIRES as a Research Associate until moving to a tenure track position in the Geography department at the University of Iowa. His next academic positions too him to Idaho State University where he led the development of an interdisciplinary research institute and to the University of Arizona as a scientist in the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth. He then moved into university administration at Montana State University in Billings, where he directed the Grants and Sponsored Programs office and managed the research endeavors and graduate programs. He moved to NSF to become a Geography and Spatial Sciences program officer in January 2011.
Dr. McGinnis's research is rooted in climatology, but has moved into complex systems theory and coupled natural-human systems. He received numerous NSF and other agency grants during his research career and focused extensively on issues in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. His most recent project has looked at agents of change and social complexity in how common pool resources are managed in the private lands around Yellowstone. He has authored over twenty five articles on his research results in physical science and social science journals.
During his time at NSF, Dr. McGinnis has been a program officer in the Geography and Spatial Sciences team, and has participated in numerous cross-directorate, SEES (Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability) and cross-agency environmental initiatives. His service at NSF includes the following: SEES Implementation Group member; Sustainability Research Network management team; SEES Research Coordination Network management team; Earth System Modeling (EaSM) management team (co-chair); Arctic SEES management team; Cyber-SEES management team; Hazards SEES management team; The Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems management team; Decision Making Under Uncertainty Management Team; Joint NSF-NOAA Task Force for collaboration; US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) Advancing Science strategic plan chapter writing team; USGCRP Process Science planning team member; USGCRP Social Science Integration team member; and a team member in a joint NSF -- German Science Foundation planning team for a joint conference on hazard and risk. Dr. McGinnis has done outreach presentations to numerous groups in the US and Europe.